Introducing Prologue — We're fans of Twitter around here, in fact many Automatticians have accounts, but while the format appealed to us it really just whetted our appetite for something more, like a way for each of us to share short messages about what we're doing or working on internally, or private messages between groups of folks.

Music file-share site Qtrax forced into humiliating U-turn — Jonathan Richards, Dan Sabbagh and Adam Sherwin in Cannes — A website which promised to give music lovers the world's first legal file-sharing service was forced into a humiliating climbdown today after it emerged that the company …

Google Docs Offline Access — In a post Philipp made last week about writing a book in Google Docs, he said: — Working with Google Docs requires an internet connection. In my case, I need this internet connection anyway [...] your mileage may vary (and who knows, Google …

Steve Jobs to Apple investors: ‘hang in there’ — In a private communication last week, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs acknowledged the beating his company's shares have taken during this time of economic uncertainty, but remained confident that investors would inevitably recoup their losses and then some.

Apple's $300 million gray market dilemma — Having stirred up a hornet's nest with his first take in the so-called missing iPhones, Bernstein Research's Apple (AAPL) specialist Toni Sacconaghi has taken a second look at the discrepancy between the number of iPhones Apple sold …

Introducing new search views — Introducing experimental views for search results — There have been a lot of recent improvements to web search, but the appearance of results themselves has been pretty constant — 10 or so web pages in a vertical list. Frequently this is exactly the right format …

Hey HD DVD: It's Not Just a Flesh Wound — You've got to hand to Toshiba. Even now, when faced with overwhelming evidence that Sony's Blu-ray has won the high def format war, the mortally wounded HD DVD backer just keeps on prolonging the inevitable. — First, Toshiba decides …

VMware: Sales light; shares much lighter afterhours — Updated below: VMware reported strong fourth quarter earnings and revenue growth but sales fell short of estimates. — When the dealing was done VMware shares were down roughly $20 from a close of $83. Were the numbers really that bad?

It's official! DVD plus/minus war ends in a draw — The battle of the recordable DVD formats - DVD+R/RW versus DVD-R/RW - is finally and officially over more than five-odd years after it began, and several years after the fight became largely symbolic. — Late last week, DVD6C …

Software Tool Strips Windows Vista To Bare Bones — vLite is a free download that can cut the operating system's size by half or more. — A free software tool that promises to strip down the Windows Vista operating system — which even some Microsoft officials have called “bloated” …

Liberty Media Takes Action To Force Diller Out of IAC — Liberty Media Corp. took steps Monday to seize control of IAC/InterActiveCorp from IAC Chairman Barry Diller. — Liberty, which owns a majority voting stake in IAC that has long been voted by Mr. Diller under a longstanding proxy agreement …

METASPLOIT UNLEASHES VERSION 3.1 — Austin, Texas, January 28th, 2008 — The Metasploit Project announced today the free, world-wide availability of version 3.1 of their exploit development and attack framework. The latest version features a graphical user interface, full support for the Windows platform …